Years
by Lugian Before Swine
Summary: AU: American, childhood age. Ryou and Ichigo's journey through school together, one year at a time. Insanely short chapters. IxR. Written sometime in 2007, recently discovered. Permanently incomplete.
1. Preschool

**A/N: Each chapter is another grade in school, and I'm not sure how far this is going to go up to. We're going to say that Ryou is only five months older than Ichigo, for purposes that will become obvious. This is young!IxR.**

**Disclaimer for all chapters: I DON'T OWN. Yay.**

**Chapter 1: Preschool**

**Note: I personally didn't go to preschool, so I don't know a lot about it. Bear with me here.**

**And now, here we go.**

They had always lived across the street from each other, so why did he pick now to notice her? He was nearly four years old, for crying out loud. Something should have been done before this point.

She looked up from where she was playing house with two other girls. "What are you looking at?"

He quickly turned his head. "Sorry, Ichigo."

Her face softened. "Since you said you're sorry, you can play with us, if you want, Ryou."

He walked over to where they were playing. "Who can I be?"

"You can be the grandpa. I'm the mom, Mint's my kid, and Lettuce is her sister."

"Okay," he said nervously.

Geez, even now, she wouldn't give him a place of authority.

* * *

Playing house was fun–for the girls. Ryou sat in a "wheelchair" (actually a plastic kid's chair) the whole time, and only got to say one thing ("Hi.")

When the bell rang, all the kids ran in a frenzy toward the door to the classroom. The teacher let them out, and they rushed towards the door out of the building, the only thoughts in their minds centering on escaping.

Ryou sat down in a chair by the entrance. Keiichiro was always late.

Every child had gone home except Ryou. One of the teachers offered to give him a ride home, and he declined as politely as he knew how to. "Never go anywhere with strangers" echoed in his mind. Life's most important lesson so far.

When Keiichiro finally came to pick him up, he had already been waiting for nearly an hour.

Keiichiro, a 17-year-old, was always stared at by girls...in fact, as he walked towards Ryou now, he caught one of the younger assistant teachers looking at him with a gleam in her eyes. He shrugged it off as he always did, and apologized many times to Ryou. But Ryou wasn't really paying attention**. **The only thing on his mind was Ichigo, and how she had looked...cute...in that apron.


	2. Kindergarten

**Ch 2: Kindergarten**

Being in negligent Mrs. Smith's kindergarten class meant only one thing to the children—time to do whatever they wanted. Most often they would nap (just following the teacher's example) and sometimes they would play. One day Ryou raided the supply closet and found construction paper, and since that day, there has been confetti all over the place.

Eventually, Valentine's Day approached, and notes were found by a couple students on the teacher's filing cabinet. They said that the students could bring in valentines for the whole class, if they wished. The notes were quickly torn up, adding to the piles and piles of shredded paper that already lined the entire floor.

By the end of the year, many new friendships were made. Ryou noticed that Ichigo's little "clan" included seemingly everyone but him. Everyone talked to her, and she talked to everyone. She was amazingly popular, not to mention actually easy to talk to. So why couldn't he? He just didn't know. Something in his kindergartener mind told him that he would find out later, that right now, his brain just wouldn't be able to say the facts straight out, or he would be very confused. Because what kindergarten child would ever be able to truly comprehend the fact that he was in love?


	3. 1st Grade

**Ch 3: 1st Grade**

The one big transition between kindergarten and first grade is the day length. First grade is one whole day long instead of a half day. But there is another, smaller transition: being aware of others. Everyone used to blend, but now, it's a complicated mixture of boys and girls.

Feelings begin to change. "Wow, I'm in class a whole day with you now and I find you're not as bad as you pretend to be." Or the opposite, "Wow, I always thought you were nice but now I find you're just a snobby brat." For Ryou, it was neither of these things. His brain let a bit of information slip: "Well, you probably like her, maybe a little, no, a lot. You've got a crush on her."

"What do I do about it?" he thought in concern.

But his brain didn't open up any further. _Wait_, it seemed to say.

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About a month later, Ichigo's mom didn't come to pick her up, so Keiichiro took her and Ryou home. Ichigo was as talkative as ever, but Ryou just nodded his head or said, "Hmm" or "Yup" or "Yeah" and stared into her eyes. They were so dark, they seemed bottomless…like he could look into them forever and still never find what he was looking for. He was so focused he didn't even realize that they had arrived at Ichigo's house.

"Bye, Ryou!" shouted Ichigo.

"Bye," Ryou managed to mumble.

The rest of the drive home was, for young Ryou, a silent reflection of what had just happened. _"You like her a lot. You've got a crush on her." _Suddenly, Ryou understood what this meant. That was why he was so nervous around her, so afraid to talk to her: he was afraid that he would displease her. But that could only make him wonder…why was she so talkative?


	4. 2nd Grade

**Ch 4: 2nd Grade**

Ryou's brain released no more information. _In a few years_, it seemed to tell him.

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Second grade began, and little happened to help Ryou's case of Get-Ichigo-To-Like-Me Syndrome. He was as polite as any second grader could ever be to her, and she probably didn't even consider him one of her friends yet. Just another member of the fan club; take a number, get in line, what do you want? The poor little boy didn't even know the real reason he wanted her to like him; wasn't _he_ liking _her_ enough? But somehow, he realized that it wasn't.


End file.
